Louisiana's private school voucher program was billed as an exit hatch for students from bad public schools. But it was more like a trap door, according to a study released Monday (Feb. 22) by the University of Arkansas and the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans at Tulane University.

Vouchers were a signature achievement of Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration. But at a time when Jindal's successor, John Bel Edwards, and lawmakers are working to close a $2 billion budget gap, the study raises the question of whether this high-profile program did more harm than good in its first two years.

The initial results were devastating. Already behind academically, the students did even worse after one year at their new schools. Their state mathematics test scores fell 24 percentile points below those of their peers who were not awarded a voucher. Their English scores fell 8 percentile points below.

After the second year, the scholarship students hadn't recovered even to where they began in mathematics. The researchers can't rule out the possibility that they returned to baseline in English, but they think those scores remained lower as well. Meanwhile, their peers who stayed at public school did slightly better.

"Students are learning less each year," alliance director Doug Harris said Monday afternoon.

The Louisiana Scholarship Program lets students in low-income families attend participating private schools at taxpayer expense if they were enrolled at a public school graded C, D or F, or if they are entering kindergarten. The students take the same state exams as their public school peers.

This isn't the first report to cast doubt on the program's academic results. Test scores have come in low all three years, although they improved in 2015.

But voucher advocates say low-income parents should have the same right as wealthier families to choose the schools they want. and families with children in the scholarship program overwhelmingly support it, according to surveys by the Black Alliance for Educational Options.

Education Superintendent John White defended the program. "Scholarship students are showing steady, long-term improvements. The percentage of students scoring at the 'basic' level and above on state assessments has increased from 34 percent in 2011 to 47 percent in 2015," he said.

However, "There is still much work left to be done," he said, and "a strong accountability system is crucial for continuing the progress."

Researchers Jonathan Mills and Patrick Wolf examined about 1,525 students who attended third through sixth grade in public schools in 2011-12, the year before the scholarship program expanded from New Orleans to statewide. They caution results might not be the same for students in other grades.

Mills and Wolf called these results "unprecedented" among studies of voucher programs. They had several possible explanations:

The private schools might not have been used to educating children from low-income families. Additionally, their curricula might not have been in line with the state's mathematics benchmarks. If either is true, test scores might improve over time as schools adjust, Mills and Wolf said.

Most studies have found mildly positive results for small voucher programs, Mills and Wolf wrote. Louisiana's program is much larger.

The more prestigious and expensive private schools generally do not take vouchers. The dollar amount does not cover their full tuition; the schools may not select which students to accept; and school leaders told the American Enterprise Institute that the voucher children weren't well-prepared. Indeed, a National Bureau of Economic Research study released in December found that private schools often signed up to accept vouchers only after their regular enrollment plunged.

The researchers said White might be correct about accountability. The state freezes a school's voucher enrollment if students don't score well. For instance, after scores came in from 2014, the state barred 23 of 126 schools from taking new students.

That "back-end" feature is crucial, the researchers wrote: "Over time, we may expect to see less negative effects as poorly performing private schools continue to be identified and excluded from the program."

Money, politics and consequences

Scott Richard, director of the Louisiana School Boards Association, said he was disappointed by the poor showing. He said it was important to have "viable information," especially "in a time of scarce resources."

The Legislature allocated only $42 million for the voucher program this year, and fewer than 7,400 students enrolled. But there are few places to cut the budget for elementary and secondary public schools because the Louisiana Constitution protects the main pot of funding for school districts. Jindal tried to put the voucher money into that pot but the state Supreme Court disallowed it.

The Louisiana Department of Education on Friday sent the Legislature a report saying it was about $3,300 cheaper for the state to assign a voucher than to send a child to public school.

Education consultant Andre Perry said too many children in Louisiana attend private schools -- including his son -- for the Education Department to ignore. "There will be those (who) say 'Get rid of the voucher program.' And I say we need a strategy to improve upon private and parochial schools," he said.

State Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie, and chair of the Senate Education Committee, doubted the report would have much effect, especially considering Louisiana has more than 700,000 public school students. "I personally like the concept that we need some ability to (ensure) that kids get to better schools than they left, but all of this is probably a tempest in a teapot," he said.

Ann Duplessis, president of the Louisiana Federation for Children, was completely unpersuaded by the report. "The scholarship program does play an essential role in improving the lives of children," she said. She criticized the researchers for examining the 2012-13 transition.

Indeed, during a panel discussion, Wolf said the first year of a new program was not representative, referring to the National Bureau of Economic Research report.

Other elements

The universities on Monday released additional studies that found two positive, tangential results of the voucher program:

Math scores ticked up at some public schools that had to compete with a large number of voucher schools

Racial integration improved at the public schools that vouchers students left. That's the opposite of what the U.S. Justice Department alleged when it unsuccessfully sued Louisiana to block vouchers in 2013.

However, the private schools that took vouchers became more racially segregated. The vast majority of Louisiana's voucher recipients are African American.

A fourth study found no evidence to confirm families' sense that the private and religious schools improve their children in ways that aren't measured on tests. Participating children reported the same levels of self-esteem, sense of empowerment, political tolerance and "grit" as their peers who did not use vouchers. However, the five researchers who conducted this analysis considered the findings inconclusive due to the difficulty of measuring social and emotional traits.

The studies were funded by the right-leaning Smith Richardson Foundation, which was started by the family that ran the Vick Chemical Co.

. . . . . . .

CORRECTION:An earlier version of this article said Wolf, in the panel discussion, seemed to backtrack on his own findings. In fact, he was referring to the National Bureau of Economic Research report.